


May the Melody Disarm Us

by skarlatha



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: And Stars and Snow and Flowery Metaphors, First Kiss, M/M, Polyamory, Sappiness, Seriously There's Moonlight, Slow Dancing, Warning for Nausea Caused by Extreme Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-13 00:17:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7130516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skarlatha/pseuds/skarlatha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valley Forge, 1778. It’s George Washington’s birthday, and the troops have been given a day off and extra rations to celebrate. Lafayette escapes outside the headquarters when the dancing starts, and Washington comes out to find him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	May the Melody Disarm Us

**Author's Note:**

> Title from “Snow” by Sleeping at Last. This story is set in the universe of the Hamilton musical, so for best results picture Daveed and Chris instead of white guys. However, although there are many references to the musical, you don’t necessarily have to have seen/heard it to follow the story. But let’s be real, if you aren’t a Hamilton fan then what are you doing with your life?
> 
> A short real-life history lesson that isn’t obvious in the musical: Washington and Lafayette were close. Like, REALLY close. It’s generally described as a father-son relationship--obviously I’m taking a different interpretation here, but the strength of their bond was srs bsnss no matter how you slice it. These men genuinely loved each other and some of the stuff they did/wrote to each other will break your heart more than any fanfiction ever will. Research historical Washette with caution because you may be hit by falling feels.
> 
> And a note regarding age: Daveed and Chris are six years apart in age. Washington and Lafayette were twenty-five years apart. So for the purpose of this story, I’m splitting the difference and making Washington about fifteen years older than our boy Lafayette. So that would make Lafayette about 20 and Washington 35-ish in this scene. Just, you know. For picturing purposes.
> 
> OMG I FORGOT TO MENTION that [Michelle_A_Emerlind](http://archiveofourown.org/users/michelle_a_emerlind) beta-ed this and I am forever in her debt. But then I took her to see Hamilton and got her Leslie Odom Jr.'s autograph on her playbill so I'm pretty sure she forgives me.

It’s the calm in a storm, a much-needed rest. The soldiers have been given a day off from drills and practice and the patrols are down to the minimum to give the maximum number of people a chance to relax, and the quartermaster had even found a way to give them all extra rations--not that there’s much to spare, but even an extra spoonful feels like a feast after the long winter they’ve somehow managed to survive. Really, Lafayette thinks, they shouldn’t be doing any of this, shouldn’t be celebrating anything. But it’s General Washington’s birthday, and even though the man himself had quite adamantly refused to allow a celebration of his own person during such hard times, everyone knows there’s no way to stop Alexander Hamilton when he gets a bee in his bonnet about something, and so the party for the officers had been planned.

And if Lafayette is honest with himself, there’s nothing more worthy of celebration than the birth of George Washington.

And yet he finds himself outside, leaning against a tree in the dark and staring up at the moon, barely a sliver in the night sky and waning with each passing day, and he wonders if Adrienne is looking at the same moon, if it looks the same to her as it does to him, if it’s even nighttime in France and whether he’ll ever feel at home there again. If maybe, one day when he’s returned to his cold chateau so far away from the fires of revolution, he will walk out into his garden and look up at the same moon that George is looking at, if the general will even think of him again when he’s gone.

“Why do you stand out here all alone, my friend?” It’s Washington’s voice, the soft one he uses only with family and intimate friends, the one that belongs to a farmer from Virginia rather than an emblem of liberty, taller than everyone around him in both stature and renown, and Lafayette feels his heart leap into his throat at the sound. Washington walks slowly across the snow-dusted earth to stand by Lafayette’s side. “A dashing young Frenchman like you ought to be dancing.”

Lafayette laughs softly, hugging his arms to his chest and dropping his gaze from the sliver-moon to the ground. “Ah, mon cher général, you do not wish to see me dance.”

“You break the heart of every lady in the room by holding yourself back,” Washington says, tilting his body just enough to bump his shoulder against Lafayette’s. “Come now, Gilbert. There’s so little time to dance in the middle of a war. Make the most of it.”

Lafayette shakes his head, a rueful smile playing at the corners of his lips. “Sadly, sir, I have it on excellent authority that I am a terrible dancer. Quite hopeless.”

Washington scoffs, crossing his own arms over his chest against the cold. “On whose authority?”

The smile breaks free of Lafayette’s restraint and spreads over his face. He flicks his eyes over to Washington without turning his head. “Sa Majesté la Reine,” he says, chuckling softly and returning Washington’s shoulder-bump. “I am afraid that a queen outranks a general, mon cher. So I must take her word on the matter.”

Washington laughs too, a low, rumbling sound that reminds Lafayette of the way the sun breaks free of the water at the end of a long night at sea--warm and safe and full of comfort, of hope. “Ah, but you have forgotten an important fact, my dear marquis.”

“And what is that?”

“We are not in France,” Washington says, turning to face Lafayette. “So Her Majesty can say what she wishes, and I am at liberty to call her a fool.”

Lafayette laughs again, and where Washington’s was deep and steady like the American soil, his is fragile, almost fearful. Because here in the dark, under the weak light of stars and their reflection on the snow, it’s almost as if there’s a chance that miracles could happen, that a man like Washington could be as captivated by Lafayette as Lafayette is by his general. As if a spoiled rich kid with far too many names and an unhealthy lust for glory could ever hope to deserve a paragon of perfection like George Washington, a man who is destined for greatness in a way that most men only dream of.

“I would not recommend that, my dear general,” Lafayette says, swallowing around an aching dryness in his throat. “Her Majesty does not appreciate being called a fool.”

“Well, I do not appreciate Her Majesty telling my beloved marquis that he is anything less than a dancing master.” Washington puts a hand on Lafayette’s shoulder and gently turns him so that they are facing each other. “Here, dance with me. Let me be the judge.”

Lafayette looks down at George’s hand, extended in an invitation for his own. “It’s not proper. We could be seen, and people would… assume things.”

Washington snorts derisively and flexes his hand toward Lafayette again. “Let them assume. What will they do--court martial me? Relieve me of my post? Let them try.”

Lafayette laughs softly and reaches out to take Washington’s hand, feather-light at first and then firmer, stronger, as Washington pulls him dancing-close and puts one hand on Lafayette’s waist. Lafayette bites his bottom lip for a moment, then lets it spring free from his teeth as he looks up at George with sparkling eyes. “You will have me dance comme une femme, General Washington? How very American of you.”

“We are both Americans,” Washington says quietly, then smiles. “But yes--oui? Is that right? Oui?”

The thin layer of snow crunches under their feet and it’s only then that Lafayette notices they are already dancing, that George is moving him around gracefully in the dark under the Pennsylvania trees, that although Washington’s tongue was not made for languages other than English, Lafayette is quite certain that he’s never heard anything as sensuous as poorly-pronounced French coming from the mouth of his general. He huffs out a soft chuckle. “Yes. Oui, mon cher. I shall succeed in teaching you my language yet.”

George pulls him the slightest bit closer and continues dancing, their fingers twining as their hands press against one another’s palms. “I keep telling you, Gilbert. I am far too old to learn a new language.”

“You are not so _very_ old,” Lafayette says, his heart hammering in his throat at the intimacy of hearing his name on Washington’s lips.

“Too old for _you_ ,” George says, barely more than a breath in the dwindling space between them. “But oh, if I was a younger man…”

Lafayette waits, but the sentence drifts away into the night, swirled up onto snowflakes that are just beginning to fall again. “What would you do if you were younger, mon ami?” Lafayette whispers, letting his eyes drop to George’s throat, the smooth bob of his Adam’s apple as it moves in response to Lafayette’s question.

“Likely nothing,” George admits after a long, profound silence. “Martha… she knows that I don’t… that I _can’t_ …” He clears his throat and gives Lafayette a little twirl before returning his fingers to Gilbert’s waist and tightening them ever so slightly. “But the marquise. You love her. You’ve said as much. So even if I was young, even if I was _worthy_ , I wouldn’t… indulge myself with more than this one dance.”

“Adrienne, she…” Lafayette drifts to a stop but leaves his hands on George, one on the general’s shoulder and the other entwined with strong, capable fingers that have always set his blood on fire. “She is the sun in my sky, the light that wakes me each morning and gives me a reason to continue. But you…” He slides the hand on George’s shoulder up to press flat against the general’s neck, feeling the pulse under the skin there like the drums leading to war. “You are the snow and the stars, a sea on which I can sail. She gives me reason, you give me strength. I am nothing without you, either of you.”

George’s eyes flick up to meet Lafayette’s, brown meeting brown in the waning moonlight. “I will not do anything that might jeopardize your love for her.”

Lafayette lifts his other hand and trails the tips of his fingers along Washington’s jawline. “Mine is not a heart that was made to love only once. My wife and I have talked of this. She knows the esteem I have for you. And she knows that that esteem does not replace what I feel for her. I am, in fact, certain of my ability to give you her blessing to do whatever it is that a young Monsieur Washington would wish to do.”

“Even kiss you?” George says, spitting the words out like a challenge, like a gauntlet thrown to the frosted ground, but Lafayette just bites his lip again and looks down, heat flooding his cheekbones, then nods very slowly.

“Oh,” Washington breathes, strong eyebrows rising above wide eyes, the pupils blown out until they engulf nearly all of the dark irises around them. He lifts his hand and touches Gilbert’s chin softly with just the tips of his fingers, then leans in until their lips are but a breath apart before pausing. “Are you su--”

“Embrasse-moi,” Lafayette interrupts in a breathless whisper. “Kiss me, George. Please.”

The touch of lips to lips is soft at first, tentative, just the barest brushing of their mouths, and yet Lafayette’s spine tingles as if the whole thing has ceased to be bone and nerve and is now entirely composed of summer lightning here in the chill of the winter woods. He lets out a soft noise that could either be a growl or a purr depending on how generous he’s inclined to feel when recalling it, and the sound triggers a response from Washington, who lets out a ragged breath and then moves his lips more urgently, letting his hands slide down Lafayette’s body and around to his back as the general pulls Gilbert flush against him, and Lafayette mewls softly at the feel of hard flesh pressing against his lower belly through their uniform breeches.

Washington makes a grunt of satisfaction and presses himself tighter to Lafayette, the tiniest roll of his hips belying the tightly held control of the rest of his body. Lafayette smiles against Washington’s lips and parts his own, running the tip of his tongue over George’s closed mouth as a brief warning before he throws himself into the kiss completely, licking his way into George’s mouth and rocking his own hips forward to prove that he’s just as affected, wants this just as much.

“General Washington, I--oh shit.” Lafayette and Washington break apart quickly, Washington wiping his mouth as if it will brush the kiss out of sight as Hamilton stammers a bit and stares at the ground. “They, um, they were asking about you inside and so I came out here to find you. Wow. I am _so_ sorry, sir. I’ll just…” He waves vaguely back at the headquarters building and then strides off in that direction, leaving the general and his marquis standing in the dark alone once more, panting and staring after him.

After Hamilton disappears, Washington clears his throat, and the tiny embarrassed sound rips an honest-to-god _giggle_ out of Lafayette’s mouth. “Oh, mon coeur, the look on your face,” Lafayette whispers, grinning his brightest smile in the softly drifting snow.

“You are laughing at me,” Washington grumbles, but there’s no heat behind it, or at least not a heat that’s born of anger.

“Only a little,” Lafayette admits, then reaches out and touches George’s cheek, turning the man’s face back to his own. “Bon anniversaire, mon cher général. I hope it has been a good one.”

“The best,” Washington murmurs, and their lips meet again.

**Author's Note:**

> It’s true: Marie Antoinette did publicly make fun of Lafayette’s dancing skill (or lack thereof). I’m not sure exactly when that specifically happened so I don’t know if it was before or after Valley Forge, but I hope you’ll forgive the possible historical inaccuracy in the name of a good story :)


End file.
